Composing haiku feels a little like writing a memoir, and a little like writing affirmations. You know: the kind you speak in front of a mirror, feeling a little silly but holding on to your kind and serious intent.

I’m writing to freeze the moment — which of course is gone already, but three lines stand now as its tiny monument. I’m creating my life as a series of distillations, choosing the specific texture of the memories I want.

In the same breath, I’m writing toward a consciousness I want to grow, until it takes up more and more and more of my days. It’s slow, that consciousness. It’s noticing, contented, appreciative.

Sometimes I really am that way, for a moment. A haiku is a tiny monument to that moment, too.

Or maybe it’s more like a stone picked up and piled on a cairn — a communal monument, built by the depth of time and the unsynchronized intentions of many strangers holding a similar purpose. Because sure, I am doing this alone, and also, people have been doing it for centuries.

It’s a solitary pursuit in the moment; something done in deep company in the long now.

And a merging of the two.